I love stories. I was at a dinner function in Toronto last year during a conference organized by the now-defunct Canadian chapter of the University of Peace, and as part of the evening programming the organizers introduced Dan Yashinsky, a professional storyteller. Truly, his is a great job to have: to tell entertaining stories and connect with an audience, to teach without lecturing, to make a living by inducing thought and laughter in others. He talked for about 15 minutes, just enough time to tell a few good tales. (It was long enough, however, to make me wish the rest of the conference would feature more stories and fewer learned papers.) The stories he told were about a very old character, a wise fool by the name of Hodja Nasruddin. A Persian (some say Anatolian, or was it Afghani?) trickster, I’m told that Nasruddin is known throughout the the Islamic world. Nasruddin’s stories convey wisdom, but never in the way you expect.
For those who wish to know a little more about Islamic culture, I think you could do worse than read about the wisdom and folly of Hodja Nasruddin. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Nasruddin has stayed on top of technological trends, and even has numerous websites in English now: for instance, here, here, and here.
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(Incidentally, it is a shame that the University of Peace in Toronto is now defunct. However, that is a story for another time.)
